Live coverage of protist bonanza in Vancouver -- ICOP 2013 28 July -- 02 August

It's that most wonderful time of the year again: the big protist conference season. Every year around this time, one or more of the protist societies hold meetings full of people who might actually understand and care about some of your research, minutiae or otherwise. Actually, that last part is true of just about every scientific conference ever. This particular meeting is a Congress of protistology (not that kind of congress: we actually have a non-negative approval rating, I think), and happens to be in the city of my alma mater -- Vancouver. So it's like going home and binging on protists all at the same time!!! Binging on delicious Asian food too... haven't had pho or ramen since the last time I was there. Oh the two ramen shops on Denman owned by the same owner, specialising in different styles... we get specific over there. But I digress. Protists and ramen will, of course, be heaven on earth. OMG OMG OMG (there goes my flimsy veneer of professionalism).

And to top it all off, afterwards I'm going to a marine biology station, Friday Harbour Labs, on an island in Washington state (right off the coast of Victoria, BC actually, basically right on the border). Will be protistologising there for 2-4 months, depending on funding. Pictures and stories will follow. SO EXCITED. Ok, back to conference.

You can view the overall programme here: ICOP conference programme. The topics look very exciting, and negotiating the concurrent sessions will be living hell as I want to go to ALL of them. If any one in particular catches your eye, poke me and I'll try to investigate further. Or blog it. I like knowing what people are interested in.

Moreover: I will be covering the conference live, and then writing it up! I was generously sponsored by ICOP and ISOP to report the meeting. This is what I'll be doing:

Live tweeting: from @ocelloid at #ICOP13. You can also follow @ocelloid tweets on the front page of the blog(it disappeared somewhere...).

Blogging write-up: immediately after the conference, here. Or, if something really mesmerises me and I'm not too drunk in the evenings: quick notes during the conference. Actually (again, if I'm not too oversocialised/drunk), transcripts of the day's tweets should be posted here. The priority will be to soak in as much as possible during the conference though, and live tweeting does a good job at writing my own notes.

Informal interviews with researchers: Self-explanatory. Time-allowing on both ends. Can be done by email too. Please please let me know if you have any questions about any topic or for any researcher in particular!

Guest posts: I'll harass people to write guest posts about their research. Success not guaranteed, but I'll try to be extra annoying.

[technology-allowing] Broadcast of some talks via Google Hangouts on Air (streamed on Youtube). I've never done that before, so no guarantees -- but watch the twitter feed for further info.

Ideas from your end?

Again, main source is @ocelloid and #ICOP13. Hope to see you there, in ether or not!

The views expressed are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily those of Scientific American.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Psi Wavefunction

I first encountered the wonders of the protist realm back in childhood, when a murky droplet of pond scum was revealed by the microscope to entail an alien world in its own right. It took another decade to discover there was a field and a community dedicated to these organisms, and I bade farewell to the study of more familiar big things. As a kid I was also fascinated by tales of exploration of the New World, as well as those of fantasy worlds. I was then sad that the age of surveying new landmasses on earth was over, and that human extraterrestrial adventures are unlikely to happen within our lifetimes. It seemed everything was discovered already. But that could hardly be further from the truth -- all that is necessary to begin one's own Age of Exploration is a new approach or perspective, and a healthy does of imagination. Since reality has conjured far more than the human mind alone ever could, science yields a way to write stories much wilder than fiction. All one needs to access the alien world of microbes around (and inside) them is a shift of scale by simple glass sphere.
I'm currently finishing up my undergraduate degree in Vancouver and in transition career-wise, hopefully to end up in graduate school soon. I was born in Russia (and speak the language) and spent most of my life in US and Canada. In addition to protists, I'm fascinated by evolution, including that of culture and languages, diversity and biology of cells and how they self-organise, linguistics and anthropology, particularly of the less talked-about cultures, sociology of science and plenty of totally random things that snag my attention.
Banner image was kindly post-processed and enhanced by my friend: an accomplished comic artist who goes by Achiru.

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